As many of you know, the Ubuntu community is planning to release their next version Ubuntu Linux, version 7.10 (a.k.a “Gutsy Gibbon”), this Thursday. At this time, we’re not yet ready to announce our product plans around Ubuntu 7.10, but I would like to share information on some of the work my engineering team has been performing with the OS.
Over the past few months, our focus with Ubuntu 7.10 has revolved primarily around hardware functionality and stability on the systems we plan to support. This has involved a great deal of testing, identifying and troubleshooting bugs, and working with the Ubuntu community to get those bugs fixed in the OS. In particular, much of our testing has focused on the following areas: graphics (laptop native resolution support, monitor compatibility), wired/wireless networking, suspend/hibernate, laptop webcams, audio, and touchpad mouse scrolling, to name a few. We have also focused on performing OS upgrade testing, to make sure the OS upgrade process is as smooth as possible for Dell customers. As always, our goal is to have Ubuntu 7.10 “just work” when installing it on supported hardware, and I think customers will have a very good experience using the OS on our supported hardware.
We have created a new Ubuntu 7.10 page on our wiki, and have begun updating it with information. After Ubuntu 7.10 is available on Thursday, please review the content on this page before updating your operating system from 7.04 to 7.10. For additional information and help, please check the Dell Desktop Linux mailing list, the Dell Linux Forum, or the Ubuntu/Dell forum.
In addition to all of our technical work, the team has also been spending a lot of time talking to customers, reading community and media reviews, sorting through Dell Ideastorm postings, and reviewing the Dell and Ubuntu Linux forums, in order to learn how we can improve our Ubuntu Linux offerings. We have incorporated much of that information into shaping our test plans, bug fixing efforts, and product plans, and we think our customers will be pleased with the progress we have made.
We’ll provide more information soon on those product plans around Ubuntu 7.10, including supported systems, supported hardware features, availability timeframe, and countries. Please stay tuned.